Brokedown in Bakersfield was supposed to only happen once. Dan Lebowitz was asked by the High Sierra Music Festival folks to put on a “playshop,” which is kind of a special, one­time event that the festival encourages. Dan was wanting an outlet for his pedal steel guitar playing and he asked Nicki and I if we’d sing on some country tunes. I had been an avid "Bakersfield Sound" fan since Gram Parsons’ recording of “Sing Me Back Home” had led me to Merle Haggard and then to Buck Owens and onward, outward and backward, as such things go. With no time to rehearse the set, the “band” assembled for a hasty soundcheck on the afternoon before our set. I knew everyone there except the lead guitarist. Dan Lebowitz was to lead us through the songs we'd chosen. Steve Adams, who Nicki and I already knew well, would lend his solid bass lines and attention to detail. Dave Brogan, one of my very favorite drummers, was a good friend of ours and a longtime ALO bandmate to Dan and Steve. The bushy­haired fellow with a Telecaster and a Deluxe Reverb would turn out to be Scott Law. Nicki and I had never met him, but we felt like old friends when that soundcheck was over. We were all there because we loved the songs that are now on this album. We showed up to that gig for no other reason than that none of us could resist the opportunity to see what it was like, if only for an hour, to be in a band that played that sound, and only that sound. What ended up happening that night was a lot more than that, and immediately after the show we unanimously vowed to do more shows. Playing that show made us feel connected to each other, to our heritage and to the audience in a way that playing our own music had seldom done. After all, we were all there for the same reason; the songs. We thought it was only right that our first album be a live album, in the spirit of capturing that magical feeling we had that night. The songs, the band and the audience are all a part of it. We gratefully witness the not­so­distant history of our beloved California, Steinbeck’s Eden, and Hag’s too; the labor camps, the taverns, the highways, the heartaches and that stubborn hope. Happy listening- Tim Bluhm